43

Cadi was busy scribbling at her desk when Rachel appeared next morning. ‘How long have you been up?' she asked as she made her way across towards the kitchen and reached for the kettle.

Cadi threw down her pen and stretched her arms painfully. ‘I'm not sure.'

‘You haven't been writing all night?'

‘No.'

Rachel put a steaming mug of tea down on the desk in front of her. ‘I've been thinking. I'm going home after breakfast. I need to stop panicking and to try to get my life in order.' She sat down on the edge of the chair beside the desk and sighed. ‘I've got three months clear to work before the cottage goes on the market, so I'll finish the Macsen sketches as soon as you can send me over the verses, and in the meantime I'll do some smaller, saleable stuff and try to concentrate on producing as much as possible for the galleries I already sell in. I'm not going to let the disappointment derail me.'

‘Good for you.' Cadi tried to keep the exhaustion out of her voice. ‘And I'll get the last of the verses over to you as I write them. I must be able to multitask. After all, writing a novel and writing poetry is not so different, especially when it's all about the same characters. I'm sorry I've been difficult.'

Rachel leaned forward and gripped her by the wrist. ‘You haven't. My God! When I think what you've been going through. If you need me, I'll come. I don't know what I could do to help but I'll be there for you– you know that, don't you. And make sure Charles knows you need him. You're not very good at telling people how you feel.'

Cadi thought about that last sentence later, after Rachel had gone. Her cousin was right. She wasn't good at dealing with people. Ifan had seen to that. But maybe, even if he hadn't, everything would have gone wrong and her relationships would have all foundered anyway on the fact that the life inside her head was more important to her, more real, than the world around her. And this time she had allowed that inner life in until it had become like an all-pervasive coral, creeping across the rocks that were the foundations of her existence, spreading, solidifying, tying her in beautiful intricate knots while she allowed the reality of the actual world to atrophy and die.

She shuddered. What a sinister metaphor.

The immediate cure for impending depression was to do something physical. She had found that out long ago, and the first thing to do was to tidy the place. She glanced round her at the empty mugs and plates, the books and papers scattered across the floor, the chairs misplaced around the room, the dead flowers in the vase on the windowsill. She gave a slight smile as a voice echoed in her head. Not her mother– her -mother wouldn't have noticed– but her mother's sister, coming in through the door as though stepping by mistake into dog mess. ‘My God, Cadi, what must your neighbours think when they come in here?'

She washed up, dusted and tidied; opened all the windows; she stripped the spare room bed and put on fresh sheets, made a shopping list, did all the boring things she would normally put off as long as possible. Then she walked out into the fresh air and after a moment's hesitation she turned up the road towards the meadow. Nothing had changed in there. The field gate was padlocked again and now she saw a yellow notice about the planning application fluttering dispiritedly in the hedgerow. The little tent had not been removed from its place over the grave, but there were no security guards as far as she could see. With a quick glance over her shoulder to make sure there was no one around, she climbed over the gate and set off across the grass. The meadow was already hot, the sun high. She could hear grasshoppers and the drone of bees; high above her the skylark was pouring out its song into the silence. The scent of the grass was rich and glorious after being indoors all morning. She took a deep breath, reminded suddenly of the joy she used to feel wandering around in here on her own at every time of the year, in the early mornings, or late in the evenings, sometimes with Sally and little Gemma, but more often alone just relishing the quiet. Thinking. Allowing the poetry to flow in. All that had gone of late. This was now a place of violence, of blood and death, of burning buildings and galloping hooves, of mystery and strange unearthly forces. It was as if something weird and dangerous had been unleashed. Had that been Ifan all along? Had his ownership of this piece of land set the air trembling with the echoes of the past? She shivered. Standing still, she looked round and realised with a spike of fear that there was someone standing by the gate.

It was Chris. ‘I saw you leave the cottage. I'm sorry. Would you rather be alone?' He had climbed onto the lowest bars of the gate and vaulted over it.

She liked Chris. He was solid; practical; reliable. Exactly the kind of person she needed near her at this moment. Side by side they set off slowly around the perimeter of the field.

‘I've just dropped off some cakes and bread at Arwel's. Did you realise he was back?' He glanced across at her.

‘I saw his lights on last night.'

Chris nodded. ‘He's been in London. He brought Sue back with him.'

‘Sue?'

‘His daughter-in-law. Ifan's wife.'

Cadi stopped dead. ‘Oh my God! The one Ifan is supposed to have beaten up?'

Chris nodded. ‘She was in the hall when I knocked and he had no alternative but to introduce her. I couldn't exactly ask her what had happened and where Ifan was now, so I just handed her the bag of buns and smiled politely.'

‘Did she look OK?'

‘A bit pale. Very pregnant.'

‘And Arwel?'

‘High colour. Scowling. Not pregnant.'

Cadi smiled. ‘I probably won't call in.'

‘Best not, is my guess. I just thought I'd warn you. Ifan is still in hospital?'

‘As far as I know.'

‘Good.' They reached the gate at last and scrambled back over it.

They parted at her front door. ‘Take care, Cadi. Don't let your guard down.'

She watched as he walked away. Behind her a blackbird let out a peal of alarm calls in the garden and she turned to dive into the house. She slammed the door and leaned against it, her heart thudding. ‘Breathe deeply and slowly.' She muttered the words to herself sternly. ‘There is no one there. You know there isn't.'

She walked over to the garden doors, turned the key and, pushing them open, stepped outside. She glanced cautiously left and right and gasped. A whole section of the hedge had gone, leaving charred twigs and a strong smell of burning. The walls of the villa, ruinous and blackened, spread out onto the lawn, transparent, superimposed on the usual outline of her old apple tree, the boughs heavy with green apples, her round table and the three wooden chairs that stood under it clearly visible, but only half there. For a moment she couldn't move, then slowly the vision faded, the hedge reappeared and the garden returned to normal. Her mouth dry she took a cautious step towards the hedge and then another. There was no trace of the ruin, just the slight signs of the incisions she and Meryn had made in the grass at the edge of the flower bed beneath the hedge. She stood looking down at the place and then backed carefully away.

‘Meryn?' Her phone rang at that moment and she groped for it in her pocket, answering without thinking.

‘It's me, Charles.' He sounded crestfallen. ‘Sorry.'

She spun round and walked back towards the house. ‘Charles, I'm so pleased to hear you. Sorry, I was thinking about Uncle Meryn, and you know how he has the knack of responding to random thoughts.' She stepped back inside the house and after a second's thought she pulled the doors closed, turning the key. ‘Where are you? Are you still coming?' She hoped she didn't sound too needy.

‘I'm up at Annabel's. Can I pop down?'

They took their coffee outside to sit under the apple tree where she told him about the impersonation of the American buyer for Rachel's cottage and her aborted exhibition.

‘No proof it was Ifan, of course.'

And, just as Gwen had warned her, no proof, it turned out, that Ifan had been responsible for Charles's vandalism. ‘All circumstantial, apparently. No fingerprints. Well, we guessed there wouldn't be. He's far too clever. No evidence to say he was there. The insurance people rang me. My insurance will still pay. I still have a crime number. But there's no proof it was him, no witnesses to anything he may have done or said, just my word against his. He is a very credible, respectable and wealthy man. Why on earth should I suspect him of having any kind of grudge against me?'

Cadi heaved a deep sigh. ‘God he's so clever. So plausible!'

Gwen rang later that afternoon. ‘I'm so sorry. After his wife withdrew her accusations we had nothing to hold him on. There's no provable evidence against him. It's all hearsay with no witnesses. His last scan was clear so he has been discharged from hospital and we've had to release him.'

‘What about everything we've told you?' Cadi heard herself wailing into the phone.

‘I'm sorry, Cadi, but it's your word against his. I know as well as you do he's guilty as hell, but without proof we can do nothing. We've been looking into his history. He has no criminal record. He's a well-regarded philanthropist and businessman; and according to him, you're the one who's been harbouring a grudge ever since he had to end the relationship between you because of your impossible behaviour. I know!' She forestalled Cadi's explosion of denial. ‘But there you are. That is what he's claiming. The case put by your uncle has collapsed as well. That too was a malicious accusation, completely without foundation, and the police who went up to his cottage to get a further -statement from him yesterday could find no trace of him. A neighbour told them he hadn't seen him for months.'

‘What do you mean?' This time Cadi's indignation was so real Gwen listened. ‘He has no neighbours; he lives in an isol-ated cottage in the Black Mountains and Detective Chief Inspector Vaughan went up there to take his evidence after Meryn called the ambulance to Ifan when he was struck by lightning. A helicopter came. Surely the paramedics aren't going to deny seeing Meryn. He's been home for months, except when he came to stay with me here for a few days.'

There was a short pause. ‘Ah. There seems to be a gap in the evidence file. Leave it with me, Cadi. And give your uncle a ring. Check he's OK. And, listen. If there is any sign of Ifan anywhere near you– or your uncle, for that matter– ring me on the number I gave you, at once. At once!' she repeated.

Cadi switched off her phone. Charles was watching her.

‘You gathered what she told me? They've released him.'

‘Friends in high places?' Charles sounded bitter.

‘I can't understand it. They know he was responsible for vandalising your car.'

‘That was all based on his use of violence against his wife. If she's backed down, then the whole case obviously seems shaky. He's had time to think it all through, calm down and reframe it convincingly. He's a clever bastard!' Charles threw himself down on the sofa and sat, his hands clasped between his knees, staring down at the floor.

‘I'll ring Meryn. Maybe he'll know what's going on.' She held on for several minutes, listening to the ringtone, but there was no reply. He had not switched on his answerphone.

‘Ring the policeman. Wasn't he an old friend of Meryn's?'

When she finally got on to the correct CID department, all she could do was leave a message for DCI Vaughan to call her back.

‘Would you stay here, with me?' Cadi said at last. ‘Or maybe you're planning to stay with Annabel again?'

He grinned. ‘I was there last night, but I'm sure she would rather I wasn't. Of course I'll stay with you.'

Once he had collected his case, his new laptop, a bag of -groceries and the chocolates he had tried to give his former landlady, and which had been firmly redirected by her to Cadi, he drove away to park his car well out of sight behind the house of one of Annabel's friends. As far as they knew, Ifan had no way of knowing what Charles's new car looked like, but they were taking no chances. Once he had been safely ensconced in the spare room, the downstairs windows locked and the kitchen blind pulled down against the low sunlight, Cadi felt safe at last.

It was only then that she told him about her vision of the burnt-out wing of the palace, and after careful scrutiny of the garden, still brightly lit by the evening sun and very obviously empty of intruders, they went outside, drinks in hand, to view the scene where the devastation had occurred, before going to sit under the apple tree.

‘Do we gather they never rebuilt it?' Cadi asked as she sipped her drink. He had made them both a Negroni. She was feeling much happier now that he was there, she realised; the shadowy ghost of the ruined building seemed less worrying, less real. ‘Elen's first reaction was to say that was what she wanted to do.'

‘I expect the archaeologists will be able to tell us that. I'm so pleased they're going to do some investigation.'

‘Have the police finished the forensic side of things?' Cadi had found a packet of roasted peanuts in the back of the cupboard and thrown them into a bowl. She picked out one.

‘Steve seemed to think so. They're just waiting for an official OK to go back to the site.' He sat back in his chair and sighed. ‘You know, I love it here. For all its weirdness and ghostly apparitions, it's a peaceful place.'

She smiled. ‘Which of course it won't be any longer if they build houses next door.'

‘No. I suppose not.' He sat forward. ‘If Ifan has been cleared of any wrong doing, however misguidedly, I imagine the planning application will be reinstated. You do realise that if they give him permission to build here, the dig, even if they find a villa, will only delay the inevitable.'

She nodded. ‘I would have to move. Which of course is what Ifan wants.' She reached for the jug with its rapidly melting ice cubes and topped up both their glasses. ‘This house, this landscape, made me the writer I am. I've been thinking about it. Ifan couldn't bear that I lived this internal life with people in my head who were strangers to him, people he couldn't get to know and he couldn't control. My thoughts, ideas, the places I could imagine were all inaccessible to him. I could escape from him whenever I wanted to, to a world far away.' She paused thoughtfully. ‘It was the same with David, to a certain extent. I couldn't fit into his world either, not really, and to be honest I didn't want to, but he understood. He's a good man; kind. He let me go and we have stayed friends. Ifan never bothered to try.'

‘I understand.' Charles said it so softly she wondered if she had imagined it.

‘That's because you're a writer too.' It had taken her a while to think of looking him up online after she had first found him on the university website.

He grinned. ‘Of two stuffy history books.'

‘Well-reviewed history books. So, you know what it's like to live in the past, and besides, you're a dowser. You must be OK.' She sprang to her feet, embarrassed by her own revelations. ‘Shall we go in and find something to throw in the pan? I'll make us a stir-fry.'